But, in fact, the Baroness was a skilled general in planning her
campaigns. She seldom plunged into action unprepared.

She knew from experience that she could not live in a large city and
not use an enormous amount of money.

She was tired of taking great risks, and she knew that without the
aid of money and a fine wardrobe she was not able to attract men as
she had done ten years before.

As long as she remained in Beryngford she would be adding to her
income every month, and saving the few thousands she possessed. She
would be saving her beauty, too, by keeping early hours and living a
temperate life; and if she carefully avoided any new scandal, her
past adventures would be dim in the minds of people when, after a
year or two more of retirement and retrenchment, she sallied forth to
new fields, under a new name, if need be, and with a comfortably
filled purse.

It was in this manner that the Baroness had reasoned; but from the
hour she first saw Preston Cheney, her resolutions wavered. He
impressed her most agreeably; and after learning about him from the
daily papers, and hearing him spoken of as a valuable acquisition to
Beryngford's intellectual society, the Baroness decided to come out
of her retirement and enter the lists in advance of other women who
would seek to attract this newcomer.

To the fading beauty in her late thirties, a man in the early
twenties possesses a peculiar fascination; and to the Baroness,
clothed in weeds for a husband who died on the eve of his seventieth